Read More

“With the new figures that came from the government a couple of weeks ago, South Gloucestershire has become the joint lowest area for per pupil funding, Bristol is again mauled by government cuts to education and North Somerset schools are facing similar cuts.

“More than ever, head teachers are struggling to pay the salaries of teachers and support staff. Schools across our area are reducing the curriculum, restricting children's learning. The budgets for special educational needs, mental health support and other forms of social care schools should be able to offer is being reduced.”

Protest through the city centre

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The unions’ figures are fundamentally misleading. They are based on historical data and do not reflect the situation in our schools today. They also ignore the fact that schools funding is driven by pupil numbers and, as pupil numbers rise, the amount of money schools receive will also increase.

Read More

“As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, overall schools funding is being protected at a national level in real terms per pupil over the next two years. At the same time, our historic improvement of the school funding system – backed by an additional £1.3bn of extra funding – will replace the current post-code lottery which saw huge differences in funding between similar schools in different parts of the country.

“Our new formula will allocate a cash increase of at least one per cent per pupil to every school by 2019-20, with much higher gains for underfunded schools.”